Monday, September 8, 2008

Septemeber (for September)

T.S. Eliot wrote that April is the cruelest month, but for those of us in New York, nothing brings on the chills like a bright sunny day in early September. September is an interesting month - the name means "Seventh month" - because the Roman Calendar began in March until the calendar was reformed in 153 B.C. Nostradamus, in his most specific prediction, said that "the New City will be destroyed by an attack from the air in the 7th month of the third millennium." Writers in the 1990's speculated that Paris would be destroyed in July of 2000. Those writers were not taking into account that fact that 2000 was actually the last year of the second millennium, so if you count September as the 7th month then Nostradamus did well. On to the business at hand, Septemeber is an unusual typo because it adds a letter. It can be found in the moderate probability section of the page Typographical Errors in Library Databases at http://faculty.quinnipiac.edu/libraries/tballard/typoscomplete.html, meaning that it was found at least 8 times in OhioLINK at the time of its discovery.

Today's photo shows 7 World Trade Center, the first of the destroyed structures to be rebuilt.